No. 570] 



TAXOXOMY AXD EVOLUTION. 



377 



work and the output of anatomical and morphological work 

 nowadays move along completely different channels. The work 

 turned out by the systematic worker is scarcely, if ever, con- 

 ceived in the light of modern biological theory, is rarely couched 

 in terms of modern biology and rarely indicates a problem to be 

 solved or a question to be answered. It proposes distinctions 

 the anatomist sweeps away and hazards affinities the morphol- 

 ogist laughs at. It performs work that has to be done over 

 again, and instead of giving the morphologist wind it claims to 

 give him — a sketch map of the country he is to traverse — all it 

 does is to bewilder him with a Will-of-the- Wisp 's lantern, an 

 intolerable multitude of slipshod and untrustworthy directions 

 that he has come instinctively to suspect. We can not too often 

 ask the question, why should the work be done twice? Surely 

 it is time that something were done to stop this tremendous rush 

 for publishing provisional diagnoses that more time could be 

 devoted to the systematic study of animal forms, obtaining 



geographical distribution, valid species and a less confused 

 nomenclature. 



id are increasing our knowledge by so much. True, but by so 

 considerable an amount that when the anatomist comes along 

 ith his scalpel he so quickly disposes of the external parts 

 erely by the use of his eyes that it is a matter of indifference 



'oat majority of the tens of thousands of descriptions that are 

 suing from the press are of animals so closely related to pre- 

 oiisly described species that such descriptions really amount 



